Living the Dream: Day Six ... The Best Friends are....

Old friends. The ones that have so much dirt on you, you can never EVER take the risk of them NOT being your friend. There are two of those that commented on my "COMMENT EXPERIENCE" that I am going to reveal deep secrets, show rarely shown pictures, basically throw them under the bus. Because I love them THAT much. :)

You know the kind. The ones that have known you so long you have pictures like this of them in your photo albums....

Now, I don't think they knew each other in high school, because they were VIP's at two different times. (one a year older, one 2 years younger)

We will talk about this one first. My bud, and cohort since the 9th grade..

CYNDI IZARD BRACY

Cyndi and I could walk from the middle school (Mid-high back in the day), and walk 1.2 miles to Benton's Cafe for lunch, eat an order of FF and DP (sadly, my menu hasn't changed much from those days) and walk back in 35 minutes. The waitress KNEW the minute we walked in and made our way to the back, and would have our FF and DP's waiting. Now that was service. And it cost us .97 cents each. With a 3cent tip. That waitress was one good woman. :)

Only really truly good friends reveal pictures like this..... (and please take into consideration, we were in our prime in the 80's, ok?)

One of my favorite pictures of Cyndi, glowing in pregnancy with her son Adam, holding Lacey in 1984

Then Adam arrived in January, and we both got perms and met back up in March. Lacey wanted to touch the baby. I wanted to get a haircut and find a new shirt with less plaid and less ruffle collar. Cyndi needed more hairspray, and Adam was just looking around for something to hunt. It's all there, just look closely.

No, she wasn't invited to a tacky christmas party, this was an actual outfit, along with her nifty hair and braces. I am seriously going to have to hide for showing this picture. There will be hell to pay. I do promise. But it is so dang funny, and we have searched high and low for shirts exactly like these for tacky christmas parties the last couple of year, I had to pay homage to the real deal. Be kind in your rebuttal, old best friend.

Cyndi's comment for me was just a running commentary on everyone else's comments, but she did manage to say that I was a strange woman that she loved, she felt honored to be part of the thread, and that she liked gum. Do you see why we are friends?? I could put a picture of a Sonic Diet Strawberry limeade here, but it's funnier to show old pictures. I don't see Cyndi very often, since she lives about a 5 hour drive, so I have many more pictures of us together, because when we get together, we tend to take pictures. So I have these jewels..

2004 with our kids

When you are in my way inner circle, you get a nickname. Cyndi's name was Cyndi Lou, and I was Laura Jane, for the longest time, and then she got upgraded to Cyd and I'm LJ. During this time, Cyd came up a bunch to help me redo my house, and she because "Madame Tar-Jhay, and I was Queen Wal-Marta".

And next under the bus............. MARY SYKORA ZUECH
Mary lives close, so we get together when we can, and never ever feel like we missed a day. I have nagged her hairless to get on Facebook, and she finally did, so I can honor her with pictures like this....

Her mom and dad took me on a family vacation with them. One time. Maybe because I took pictures like this of their lovely. Maybe because we laughed like hyenas the whole time. Who knows? One time. LOL

We were in high school together, she is a much younger sophomore to my senior, and don't ask me why I am sticking my tongue out in this picture, this was way before we had digital cameras. All I know is it is looking at Missy and Julia, looking at these pictures (Mary and Cathy's daughters). The family gene is STRONG. My funniest memory of Mary and I, we attended a party in Seminole, (I met the girls dad there, pretty intense evening), and me being unable to drive car from Seminole to Shawnee, and Mary driving my 3 speed home. I remember being sick, and cracked up, because she was popping the clutch and cursing and laughing and crying, all at the same time. For the sake of my children reading this, we won't reveal the reason she had to drive. T.O.G.A. is all I remember. You can draw your own conclusions. (I was young and stupid, and the legal drinking age was 18, so behave yourselves.)

Don't even ask me why I thought my hair looked attractive cut like that. It looks like a really bad football helmet. Or maybe a helmet would have been an improvement, but the bride and her bridesmaid looks rocking. (Again, look just like their daughters, or vice versa). Also very interesting in this wedding was the fact that we had no flower girl, until I offered up my own "Kid" that I had babysat since birth, Amanda. Hi Mary, meet Amanda, she's going to be your flower girl.

Here's how Amanda's mom found out.. "Uhm, Elaine, can I borrow Amanda on Saturday for a few hours??" "Ok, Laura,what are you doing now?" "Uhm, she's going to be in a wedding, does she have white shoes?" "Ok, could you get me a picture at least?" Good friends hand over flower girls in a pinch. That's what we do.

Mary owned a shop in Purcell that did a bunch of everything and her forte was FLOWERS, so Lacey enlisted her aid, at her wedding, and Mary did an incredible job. Cause that's what friends do. Calm the nerves of brides and their mothers. I've always called her "Mama Mary", and I've always been "Baby Laura". Kind of weird, seeing how I'm older, but she's ALWAYS been the wiser of the two.

Mary's comment was "Totally whacked, that's why I love you."

Totally whacked, that's why we are buds, we are just alike. Old friends know all your junk, and love you in spite of it. If I were you, I'd get on your phones today and call your old friends and say Hey, I love you.